


Vertigo

by heartofstanding



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, sort of an au?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: Thorin gets stuck up a tree, Thranduil rescues him and has a revelation.





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2015 and for a prompt given to me by seschat.

Thranduil leaves behind his halls for a time, goes out into the freer air, the green world. He presses his hands to the rough bark of the trees that he comes across. He has spent too long beneath rock and stone. He takes no discernible path through the woods, finds his way instinctively through the tangled mass of roots and branches. The fallen leaves are soft and half-rotting, undisturbed by his footsteps.

It is a good day to be out, he thinks. The sky, distantly glimpsed through the high branches, is clear, the air fresh and sweet. It is good to be away from the dwarves, from Thorin Oakenshield, and what the dwarves call their half-hourly arguments. By which, Thranduil guesses, they mean the disagreements they fall into several times a day. Old hurts, new hurts, unfriendly jibes and meaningless insults – it is all there, all thrown into a new, harsh light and Thranduil is glad to be free for one day, even if they are no closer to reaching an accord.

So it is good to be away, to clear his head and let his nerves be calmed by the woods. Not far away, he can hear the river where it flows more slowly, where it is safe to swim. He follows the sloping ground down to the banks, takes off his boots to wade into the water. Here, the river is still fast, still cold, but it is easy for an elf to withstand it The bottom of the river is sandy, grit sticking to his toes, and stones there are worn smooth by the speed of the passing water.

Yes, he thinks, this is good. The river seems to take his bone-deep weariness away, renews him. He thinks about letting go, about letting it carry him where it will – Laketown, most probably – but he soon gives up on that thought, thinks of it as the thought of a fool, and steps onto the bank, pulls his boots on over wet feet.

It is then he hears a voice. Someone calling out a nervous greeting, and then, one desperate word, drawn-out and tinged with fear, _help_. Thranduil's back straightens, his body growing taller, tenser, as he lifts his head, searching for the source of those cries.

A breeze has come from the west, slight and barely stirring the leaves. The river flows north-east, the current growing quicker around the corner. He closes his eyes, listens, and then sets off at a run.

An elf could run in these woods, but only an elf who knew them well. Thranduil does. For nearly an age, these woods were his, and his alone, to explore. Though they are poisoned now, growing dark and shadowy, he knows his way, remembers when to dodge the high-flung roots, where the ground gives away and where the branches are low.

At last, he comes to a stop at the base of a tall tree, the trunk wide enough that he cannot hold it within his arms. The ground is kicked up, disturbed, around the base, like there has been attempts to dig down to the roots, but the roots go too deep. Low branches have been broken off, left scattered by the trunk, and scarred by sharp claws and teeth.

The voice comes again, right above him, loud and fraught with terror, and Thranduil _knows_ the voice, knows its owner too well. Have they not argued for nigh on six days about anything they could find to argue about? He closes his eyes, breathes in deep. So much, he thinks, for his good day.

So much, he thinks, for the peace and quiet of the forest.

'Thorin?' He raises his head, calls out the dwarf's name, and the voice cuts off. The tree shifts far above, a scattering of loose bark and leaves showers down before Thranduil that has nothing to do with the soft wind. 'Thorin?'

'Thranduil?' Thorin's voice, when it comes again, is still brittle with fright, but relief seems to soften it, to edge out the harder edges.

'Yes,' he says, raising his voice so it will carry to dwarf-ears, 'What are you doing up there?'

Thorin is silent for a long moment, then he speaks again, his very tone uncertain. 'There was a warg.'

That would explain the marks on the broken-up branches and the dug up earth.

'You climbed up to get away from the warg?'

'Yes.' Thorin sounds uncomfortable. There is a soft rustle to suggest movement, then a fresh load of leaves and loose bark falls down. Thorin yelps, and Thranduil imagines him clinging tight to a branch.

'The warg must be gone by now.' Thranduil nudges the turned earth with the toe of a boot. It is drier than what it should be, the claw-marks old. There are no disturbances in the forest nearby, nothing to suggest of an enemy lying in wait – unless he is to count the nervous dwarf up the tree as his foe.

'Aye, it is.'

'Then why don't you come down?'

Thorin mumbles something so quietly, so unintelligible that even Thranduil, with his elven-ears, cannot hope to make sense of it. He asks again, his voice smooth, aiming for indifferent.

'What was that, Thorin? I could not hear you.'

Silence, then, clearly reluctant, clearly upset with his own weakness, Thorin mutters, 'I can't.' Louder, more desperate, he shouts, 'I'm stuck!'

Thranduil feels his lips curl upwards, a laugh bubbling in his throat, and hastily swallows it down. It's clearly upset Thorin, and he does not wish to provoke the dwarf into anything foolhardy. It would probably cause quite a lot of distress if he returned with the news Thorin Oakenshield had fallen to his death because Thranduil had laughed at him for being stuck up a tree.

'All right.'

'What do you mean _all right_?' Thorin shouts back down, there's a distant thump, like Thorin is punching the tree, and then another shower of leaves fall. Thorin snarls a frightened curse.

Thranduil sighs heavily, stands beneath the tree, peering up through the dark branches. He can see a path up through them, and he can see small patch of colour near the top of the tree that might be Thorin. There is only one thing for it, really.

'I mean, I'm coming up to help you get down.'

'Don't you dare! I'm not having us both stuck up here.'

'I will _not_ get stuck up a tree. I am a Wood-Elf.' Not by blood nor birth, he adds silently – the Sindar have never climbed as well as their Silvan kindred, but far better than the Noldor (or at least, so his father said). He knows that he can manage it easily enough.

'You say that now. You wait until you're this high up. When you're certain that if you so much as look down—' Thorin trails off, ends in something that might as well be a gulp. His nails scramble against the trunk, sending splinters floating through the air, 'Thranduil! You've got to get me down, you have to, I've got to get down! Please! I can't stay up here forever.'

This might be the longest climb of Thranduil's life.

+

He keeps a constant stream of talk as he climbs up the tree, hands curling around branches, feet finding their place against the uneven wood. He does not know if it helps Thorin, truly – if it is a comfort. But perhaps it is a distraction, a reminder of simpler, easier times. When Thorin was young and untouched by bitterness – in the years before the dragon came – he had courted Thranduil's attention almost to the exclusion of all else, pestering him with far too many questions and requests for stories that Thranduil had found, for some inexplicable reason, unable to refuse.

Thranduil thinks of those times, thinks of his willingness now to meet with Thorin day after day, when nothing is achieved but the spilling of more hateful words. Why he is he climbing up a tree to rescue Thorin, he wonders, if they hate each other so? Why not just leave him, send out a patrol to retrieve him?

'Thranduil?'

Thorin's voice is weak, fear fracturing a new line in it, and Thranduil is high enough that he can see Thorin clearly now, see the way he looks down and wishes he didn't, pushing his body closer to the trunk, clinging to it with both arms in what could almost be described as a hug.

 _No_ , Thranduil thinks, _I can't be._

He reaches out for the next branch, pulls himself up easily. 'I'm still here,' he says, 'It won't be too much longer.'

'Can you – can you—' Thorin cuts himself off, buries his face against the bark. _Keep speaking_ , Thranduil thinks, _keep telling the stories_. He swallows, his mouth dry, and his fingers catch on the next branch, tear bark from it. It scatters on the ground far below, and he looks down, feeling for the first time, the sheer height.

How he stands there, fingers curling around a branch, feels himself separate from his body, his soul a loose, flyaway thing but how it _feels_ , how it _wants_ , how it _loves_.

 _Loves._  
  
'Thranduil?' Thorin, again, his voice still weak, still edged with desperation.

_Loves._

'It's fine,' he says, shortly, and swings himself up onto the next branch.

He can feel it already, the wounding of his heart, for what wisdom is there in loving a mortal, even a long-lived one, who will die and pass beyond reach? What wisdom is there in loving one who has nothing but loathing for you? He, Thranduil, is nothing but a fool, stricken by love, splintered by the thought of it.

+

Soon, all too soon, he finds himself on the branch below Thorin's, and he reaches up without speaking, wraps long fingers around Thorin's ankle, feels the fur and leather of his boot beneath his fingers for a brief moment before he nearly gets kicked in the face by it.

'Careful!'

Thranduil remembers, for a brief, absurd moment, a time not so long ago, when Girion told him of their pet cat that had gotten stuck up a tree. It had meowed and meowed for help, only to attack them when they climbed up to help it down. It seems Thorin Oakenshield has taken lessons from this cat.

'Sorry.' Thorin sneaks a look down at him, eyes wide, fingers raw and bloody from where he has clutched at the trunk.

'I—' Thranduil glances up, tries to work out the best way to do this. 'Do you trust me?'

He expects a _no_ , expects to be laughed at, but Thorin peeks down at him again, and very slowly, very surely, nods his head. 'Yes. Get me down.'

For a moment, he thinks of nothing but the shock of it, the surprise of finding that Thorin does seem to be telling the truth, that he does, unbelievably, trust Thranduil, and will place his life in his hands.

'I need you to start to lower one leg down.' Thorin looks at him with disbelief written starkly over to his face. Thranduil hastens to add, 'I will be _right here_ , Thorin. I will take your weight and I will not let go until you are safe. I will not let you fall.'

Thorin nods. He jerks his head up to study the tree trunk, the disturbances in the bark he has made, and then abruptly lowers one foot down. Thranduil catches it, takes the weight, and helps Thorin ease down on the lower branch. As soon as his feet hit the branch, Thorin wraps his arms tight around Thranduil and doesn't let go.

'It's all right,' Thranduil says, 'You're quite safe.'

'Safe!' Thorin snorts derisively, but eases his grip. 'What now?'

'We do it again,' Thranduil says. 'And again, until we reach the bottom.'

Thorin swallows drily. Thranduil looks at him, the reluctance and fear written in every inch of him.

'I have already told you that I will not let you fall,' Thranduil says, softly, 'Do you not trust me?'

'I trust you,' Thorin says, after a long silence, 'I don't trust trees.'

And as Thranduil laughs, he feels something within him cracking – his heart, his porcelain-mask, revealing something he thought lost and cold, some flicker of a fire buried deep but fanning into flames hotter than dragon-fire.

+

When Thorin's feet touch on the ground, he stumbles. Thranduil reaches out to steady him. He knocks Thranduil's hand away, falls to his hands and knees and presses his face to the ground. He laughs, the sound almost hysterical, and Thranduil reaches out, but thinks better of it, fingers curling into fists and then falling limply to his side.

It is over, it is done, and they will go back to Thranduil's woodland halls and pretend nothing happened. Nothing _did_ happen. Thorin got stuck up a tree, Thranduil realised he was a fool. There is nothing to be done, nothing to think of. _(Do you trust me?)_ Nothing at all. _(I trust you.)_

The days are long, time stretches on before him. A hundred years is nothing to he who has seen the fall and ruin of two ages, who will well see the end of a third soon enough, whatever end that comes. A hundred years, possibly, is less than the time Thorin has left. Thranduil wipes the fallen leaves and bark from his hair and clothes, smoothes down the creases Thorin's arms in their tight grip have left.

He is a fool. Nothing more.

Thorin is getting up, something wild and something soft in his eyes. _Relief_ , Thranduil thinks. _Gratitude_ , he thinks again. Thorin is safe, Thranduil has done no harm to him. If he has discovered he is a fool, at least he is the only one privy to that new knowledge.

A love half-given burns within him, and it will be carefully tended for a time, so that he may bury it safely, securely, in the fortress of his heart. A life, long-lived, is nothing, he thinks, to the love within him, but the dark grows too deep and ill-conceived hopes die. Night is falling, the stars fade, and he is nothing more than an old fool.

Without speaking, he turns to go back, and Thorin chases him, boots pounding against the fallen leaves. Thranduil hears his father's voice echoing in his head, the day of the battle, his body broken. _What are you grieving for, son?_ And he remembers his own answer, torn from numb and bloody lips, _for what never was_.

Thorin seizes the back of his robe, pulls him to a stop. 'What,' he growls, 'Are you doing?'

Thranduil says nothing, and he thinks Thorin might see it on him, the folly of a creature who has lived too long, seen too many fruitless victories and hopes lost.

'You can trust me. Do you not?' Thorin demands, now, and he gives no quarter, pressing closer and closer to Thranduil, his hands reaching out to grasp Thranduil by the wrists.

'I trust you,' Thranduil says, feeling himself choke on the words, 'I do not trust myself.'

Thorin is silent for a long moment, an age it seems to be to Thranduil's eyes, for Thorin's face seems to change so much within that time. He twists his fingers around, takes Thorin's hands within his own. They are rough, calloused from work, both at the smithy and with his sword, and warm. He wipes away what blood he can, runs his thumb over the split, bruised knuckles.

'I trust you,' Thorin says, 'And that will have to do.'

'It's not that simple,' Thranduil says.

'It can be.'

'Do you even know what you are talking about?' Thranduil demands, 'What will happen in, in a hundred years – in a thousand? I will still be here, and you will be—' _Dead,_ he thinks, but he does not dare say it out loud. Instead, he looks around, swallowing wetly.

'It can be simple,' Thorin insists, 'We can be happy, together.'

'For a time,' Thranduil says, sharply, 'And then—'

'We will be apart. For a long time.'

'Yes.'

'I have had enough of being unhappy, Thranduil,' Thorin says, at last, 'And if, for a time, we can be happy, isn't that better – isn't that better than an eternity of remembering, and always wondering?'

Thranduil looks long at Thorin, stays silent. For a moment, he sees Thorin's hope, his untested loyalty, his untried love, and he thinks, _you will not be bound to loss and silence forever_ , but then he thinks _all things must pass away, all life is doomed to fade._  
  
In the end, it is not about loss and death. It is not about the sorrow that will undoubtedly come as the days that go down in the west.

He bends down, lays his lips over Thorin's, and says, 'I trust you.'


End file.
